images of broken light
by Lelderkin
Summary: Plans go wrong and brothers die and anger never ends. "Life is getting more livable. At least now she has a purpose." Matt, Elena, Rebekah, Stefan, Ric, Caroline, Klaus, Damon, dealing with 3x18. T for language. Oneshot.


_summary_: Plans go wrong and brothers die and anger never ends. "Life is getting more livable. At least she has some sort of purpose." Dealing with 3x18.

_title_: "Images of broken light which dance before me like a hundred eyes...they call me on and on across the universe." ~Across the Universe by the Beatles

_note_: You guys! Season three NEVER STOPS BEING AWESOME! Seriously, the promo for 3x19 _alone_ makes up for the fact that the only Delena interaction we had this episode was a freaking dream sequence. I'm in love with all of these characters right now. Seriously. Also sorry for being so MIA lately! Life is seriously pissed off at me right now. Don't think I'm ignoring you guys, because I love you all and I'm _so_ sorry for not getting back to y'all! I'd love to hear more thoughts about this season and about this fic, if you so choose. Basically...I'm loving Mystic Falls these days! :)

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><p>Matt is alone tonight.<p>

It's not anything particularly new, this alone thing. He's always alone.

He thinks, as he stares down into his beer, about how they include him. How he got the same text as Elena and Caroline did, today. How he was involved with the plot. How he helped shoot Finn.

He is nothing special.

He used to be the only normal one in town, and proud of that. He used to distance himself from this supernatural bullshit because weirdly it made him feel like he had some power. Some control over his pathetic excuse for a life.

Now he feels the opposite.

He is the one that is there for Elena when she finally breaks down. He is the one who walks Caroline home because she tells him she feels safe with him. (She's a thousand times stronger than him and he'd just be a hindrance if someone decided to come after them, but neither of them acknowledge that.) He is the one who stays strong through all of this stuff.

Somehow, he is no longer the only normal one in this godforsaken town. He's joined a team of vampires and witches and doppelgangers and split personalities.

He's joined the good guys, he likes to think.

* * *

><p>Elena sits in her bedroom, looking at the teddy bear <em>he<em> loves to tease her about.

(Her pronouns are getting so mixed up lately.)

For once, thoughts are not whirring through her mind, threatening to drown her. Pain is lessening. (Or she's getting better at denying it.) Life is getting more livable. At least she has some sort of purpose.

_I love you. I will always love you._

She thinks about those words. That's it, she's focusing on just that. The abstract. About "I love you". About what the fuck "I love you" even really means. About how she thought she was in love with Matt, once upon a time.

About how she's only freaking eighteen years old, and she's not supposed to know everything.

She also thinks (hypothetically, of course) that it's interesting that living for one hundred and fifty some years doesn't make you much wiser.

* * *

><p>Rebekah is on Klaus's couch, drinking Klaus's alcohol, staring into Klaus's fire. With such a deep, deep anger for Klaus.<p>

And a deep, deep love, too. Of course.

She wonders if Klaus can even remember what love feels like.

She wonders how her family got so spectacularly fucked up.

Then she wonders why it took her this long to say something defiant to her big brother's face. Why she spent so much time following him blindly because he always promised her forever.

And then suddenly she knows.

It's because of forever.

Eternity is a lonely place, she decides, and then all of a sudden she knows why Finn was so ready to give it up.

* * *

><p>Stefan has his head in his hands.<p>

For once, he is not drinking a blood juice box in the darkness of the basement. For once, he is not drowning his problems in AB positive. For once, he is trying to think of Elena and Damon in the same sentence and not go batshit crazy.

It isn't much working out, to be honest.

* * *

><p>Alaric doesn't want to be left alone.<p>

But Damon leaves his house and he gulps down as much of the herb stuff as he can handle, throws the ring across the room. He doesn't open any alcohol because he's afraid that will set him off.

When he goes to bed, all he can do is pray to anything that's listening that he'll get through this night. That's what he's started to do. If he can get through tonight, he can worry about tomorrow night later.

Just get through tonight.

* * *

><p>Klaus is drawing.<p>

He doesn't really know why. He's drawing abstract figures with long blond hair and he isn't sure if they're supposed to be Rebekah or Caroline.

_Well, that's just fucked up_, he thinks to himself, and then he laughs because okay, everything is fucked up.

Then he wonders when he got so honest with himself. When he truly started admitting that he wanted hybrids so badly because his family failed him. (Or did he fail them?)

He balls up a sketch of big eyes staring at him accusingly (eyes that could be furious over the death of a family member or eyes that could be furious over the siring of a lover) and throws it at the wall, just to hear it crunch. And when he puts his pencil to the paper again he finds that he's drawing his father and his brother, burning into ashes.

He realizes this is called guilt.

* * *

><p>Caroline is asleep. She dreams of Tyler kissing her and then morphing into a wolf and biting her and then becoming a human again with a stake through his chest.<p>

She wakes up screaming.

Then she lies awake for a very long time, studying the shadows on the ceiling and wishing the bed didn't feel quite so empty.

* * *

><p>Damon wasn't able to help himself. Not tonight.<p>

That's why he's sitting on Elena's window seat, watching her sleep.

(He tries not to do this often. There's a fine line between _protecting_ and _stalking_.

But tonight he had to.)

She's so damn gorgeous, with her face clean and without worry. Her hair fans out on the pillow and he stands, feeling the compulsive need to touch it.

She shifts in her sleep and he stills, watching as her eyes slowly open.

To his surprise, she doesn't ask any questions. Her voice is still feathery from sleep when she murmurs through the darkness, "Damon," like it's a prayer. He gives her a little smile, and she sighs. Then she whispers, "Stay with me."

His heart breaks a little and then he's next to her and she's winding her arms around his neck. (She'll probably be pissed he did this in the morning but he can't help himself, not tonight.) "Thank you," she says into his chest, and he lets himself touch her hair again.

He thinks she's fallen back asleep by the time he finally says, into the black of the room, "You're welcome."

* * *

><p>Finn is a pile of ashes in the alley behind the Grill.<p>

Maybe he's finally found peace.


End file.
